It’s not often that a low-key municipal election makes international news, but one recent contest in an affluent Austin suburb has people excited about its result — and its potential implications for the rest of Texas and beyond.
On May 4, Austin’s Lost Creek neighborhood voted 91 percent in favor of seceding from the city and regaining some measure of self-determination, prompting in-depth coverage by the U.K.’s Daily Mail. What allowed Lost Creek to chart its own course was a new state law (House Bill 3053) that made some small but important changes to Texas’ disannexation process.
Disannexation broadly refers to a practice wherein “residents of a particular area [may] disassociate themselves from a municipal government’s control and jurisdiction.” In normal speak, it’s the way a community can break up with an abusive city government.
While disannexed areas may lose access to certain city services — like no longer being able to call the Austin Police Department, which is already stretched thin and understaffed by 500 — they also gain the opportunity to seek out better services elsewhere, either through an existing provider, like the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, or through some new source, like the private sector. In the same way, residents have a good chance of getting more and paying less for all other expiring city services, such as trash pick-up and emergency medical services.
To that very point, the Daily Mail quoted Austin public safety activist Cleo Petricek as saying, “I’m really jealous that they will have
